ABSTRACT
In attempts to trace the ancestry of living hominoids, the Miocene apes from Europe, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa have long played a central role. The greater part of the nasals are preserved in Proconsul. In both of the Miocene forms, the nasals must have been considerably smaller than in Aegyptopithecus and well within the range of modern hominoids. The relatively wide trochlea, large medial epicondyle, and thin supracapitular region in the humeri of Fayum species are apparently primitive characteristics which link them with platyrrhines and later hominoids and contrast with the derived conditions seen in cercopithecoids. In postcranial anatomy the Fayum hominoids are completely primitive with respect to both living hominoids and cercopithecoids. If Aegyptopithecus and Propliopithecus are really primitive catarrhines belonging to a group ancestral to both cercopithecoids and living hominoids, rather than uniquely related to later apes, to what higher taxon of higher primates should they be assigned?.
